


Fire and Ice Collide

by bookworm213



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky tries to remember, F/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers, post winter soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-01-20 00:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1489546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookworm213/pseuds/bookworm213
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elena Summer's life turns upside down when she discovers a damaged and struggling Winter Soldier raiding her fridge in the middle of the night. As she takes him in and helps him learn about his past, a bond forms between them that could turn into something more. Bucky/OC. RxR.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys enjoy this! ;)

(Okay everyone, be gentle this is my first time writing an OC! I just have a lot of Bucky feelings after WS so this is my way of getting them out. And don’t worry fans of Culture Clash, I plan and balancing updates for both stories. Just bear with me here!”)  
Elena Summers pushed the frizzy blond curls out of her chocolate brown eyes as she made her way through the crowded streets of Brooklyn. The sun was threatening to be swallowed by the dark clouds that loomed behind it. People seemed to sense the oncoming storm, walking a little faster and pushing the hoods of their thin jackets over their heads.  
Elena hurried a little faster too, not wanting to be late for her job. She’d recently moved to this part of town, seeking to get away from her crazy home life and a recent nasty breakup from her former boyfriend. She’d managed to find a tiny apartment she could afford, not in the nicest part of town. But she needed this; she needed to stick out on her own. She was hoping to be able to be able to balance work with taking classes at NYU across the city on the weekends.  
Elena finally reached her destination: Brooklyn’s Books, a tiny bookstore a couple blocks from where she lives. It’s one of her favorite places. She loves it: being surrounded all day by books, the quaint tiny bookshop as welcoming as hot chocolate on a cold day. And the owner there treats her like family.  
“Morning, Mrs. Gold.” Elena called out, walking through the doors.  
Mrs. Gold, a middle-aged, tiny woman, smiled from behind the desk. “Morning, Elena, looks like it’s going to be a stormy one later on.”   
“Looks like it.” Elena replied, hanging up her coat and making her way toward the front desk, stopping a moment to finger some of the history books. She loves history, every part of it, the people, the guts and gore. She’s even looking to become a professor once her degree is finished.  
The fist customer came in, and the day went by in a blur of talking to people, dusting off shelves, and reading idly. When the shop closes, it was about nine o’clock.   
“So, how long do you think it’ll take to finish your degree, Elena?” Mrs. Gold chatted to her as she’s preparing to leave.  
“A year or two, I think.” Elena replied, tugging on her jacket. “Hopefully I’ll get a job straightaway after that.”   
“Hopefully.” Mrs. Gold smiled as she handed Elena a pan of homemade lasagna. “For you, for dinner.”  
Elena grinned. “Thanks.”  
The storm finally started as she exited the shop and made her way toward her apartment. The air was thick with moisture ready to be dropped from the sky. She just barely made it inside before it started pouring.   
The place is tiny, but she’s tried to make it as open and homey as best she could. She’s covered the worn brick walls with movie posters and put her old vinyl collection in the corner. There’s a main room, a tiny kitchen with a bathroom down the hall leading to her bedroom.  
Elena cut off a hunk of lasagna and threw it in the microwave. As it’s heated, she flipped on the TV and surfed the movie channels. A documentary about World War II was on. She watched while chewing on her food, engrossed in footage of soldiers on the battlefield. Footage of Captain America appeared. She grinned, still marveling how such an icon was still alive today.  
Eventually her eyes grew heavy and she flips off the TV. She trudged down the hall to her bedroom, not even bothering to change clothes as she tumbles into bed. She can to that tomorrow. She drifts off to the sound of the rain ponding on her roof.  
She woke to a soft rustling sound in the main room. She rolls over, thinking it’s just the washing machine going downstairs. But then she heard what are unmistakably footsteps pattering across the floor. Her eyes flew open.  
Someone’s in her apartment.   
Elena’s heart started pounding as she listened to the footsteps move into the kitchen. She gets up and moves to the open door, straining to get a better perception of the sounds. She hears rustling, then a low moan as the fridge door is pulled open. It’s clearly a man. She starts shaking. There’s no phone in her bedroom. Maybe if she could get to the main room, she could call for help.  
She moved down the hall as quietly as she can. She heard the man pull out a container of something and start eating ravenously. She suspects it’s the lasagna.   
She reached the kitchen door, trying to move past it and get to the main room. She peeked inside. The man has his back to her, still bent over the open fridge, but she could tell he’s got at least a few hundred pounds of muscle over her. She’d never be able to take him if he attacked her.   
Elena forced herself to take a breath, inching her way past the open door. Suddenly the man’s body went rigid. He spun around, his eyes boring into hers. A mass of saggy, unkempt hair framed his face, along with a face that looked like it hadn’t been shaved in months. He wore a thick jacket with a glove covering his left hand, soaked and dripping on the floor from the rain outside. He smelled like the street, and his hand was still gripping the lasagna pan.  
Elena screamed. At the sound the man dropped the pan and it shattered on the floor with a crash. In an instant he was across the room, pressing a hand to her mouth. “Quiet!” He hissed. She could see anger in his eyes, but also fear and bewilderment and other sick emotions that she didn’t want to examine too closely. She thrashed and kicked at him, pulling him out of the hallway and into the main room. She finally got her mouth free of his hand and screamed again. Why was no one hearing her?   
The man pushed back on her, sending Elena sprawling into the wall. Her back hit with a painful thump, causing her to sink down to the floor. She opened her mouth to scream again, but suddenly she saw that the man was standing and gasping in the middle of her living room.  
“I’m sorry!” He gasped. “I’m so sorry!” And Elena stared at him in shock and disbelief. He was apologizing to her? She knew she could probably run across the room and grab the phone, but she felt frozen in place. The man, still gasping, stared at her, before his eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped to the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

Elena had managed to haul the man’s limp body onto the couch. He seemed much heavier than she felt an average person should be. He had barely stirred as she moved him onto the cushions; his arms and legs completely limp.

She had no idea why she hadn’t called the cops or the hospital yet. Maybe the only reason was that she felt sorry for him. When she got a closer look at the man, she noticed the dark circles around his eyes and the thin, hollowness of his cheeks. He looked like he hadn’t slept or had a decent meal in days. It made her heart twist. She almost forgave him for raiding her fridge and making such a gigantic mess. As she examined him more closely, daring to hover over his face, Elena realized how gorgeous the man was under all that unkempt stubble. 

She shook her head vigorously. This man was homeless, ill, and possibly insane. She needed to call someone, and, more importantly, stop trying to judge whether this guy was hot or not. 

But first, she decided, she should check whether or not the man had any weapons on him. She moved cautiously toward him again, making sure she was quiet, although the man looked like he was out stone cold. Her hand moved toward his left hand, fiddling with the cuff of his coat, seeing if he had any knives hidden up his sleeve before finally pulling of the glove . . .

Elena froze. Her breathing stopped.

The man’s fingers were metal. Pure metal.

She backed up so fast, her head slammed into one of her shelves and some of her books came crashing down to the floor. She blinked furiously; sure she had imagined the man’s strange metal hand. But when she looked back at the figure on the couch, she could see the metal fingers glinting in the low light of her lamp. 

With a muffled shriek Elena bolted for her room, locking the door. She started pacing, her heart beating a mile a minute out of her chest, for fear of this metal-fingered man who still lurked outside the door.

An hour later Elena put her ear to the door and listened. She still couldn’t hear any sounds from outside. It was when she did this that another absurd thought struck her.

She had seen the man before

She started to pace the room again, shaking her head to try and clear away the impossible reality she was conjuring up in her head. No way she thought. He just bears a striking resemblance to him. There no way he actually could be . . .

And yet . . .  
With trembling fingers Elena went over to the shelf beside her bed and pulled out one of her history textbooks. The one completely dedicated to this past century. She opened it to the World War II section, her mind still screaming at her that this connection was ridiculous, laughable, impossible.

She flipped to a page that was devoted entirely to Captain America and the Howling Commandoes. And there she sees him, grinning clean-shaven into the camera. Bucky Barnes, best friend of Steve Rogers, killed in action in 1944. 

The man who was, impossible as it was to believe, lying passed out on her couch. 

Elena awoke to her alarm going off. The sun was just beginning to rise over the rooftops. Impossibly, she’d fallen asleep. 

She hurried over to her door and listened. She could hear the man moving in the main room. She steeled her courage, still shuddering at the image of the man’s metal fingers. But she needed to face him, and demand answers. 

Taking a deep breath, Elena stepped into the hall and into the main room. The man, Bucky, was awake. He was sitting up, groaning as he rubbed his temples. When he saw her, he stiffened and inched back, assessing her as though she might be a threat.

“Hi.” Elena said carefully, bracing her back protectively against the wall. “I’m not going to call the cops, but I want you to tell me exactly why you broke into my apartment.” She was surprised by the firmness and strength her voice had, since she was devoting a good deal of her energy to not start shaking again.

For a minute he just stared at her, then spoke one sentence in a monotone voice, rough and cracked from disuse “It’s my apartment.”

Elena raised and eyebrow, shocked. “Well considering I signed the lease and pay the rent and live in the damn place, I would think it’s my apartment.”

He didn’t react to her tart tone. “It’s mine.” He insisted vaguely. “I lived here . . . a long time ago.”

Elena’s heart dropped to her stomach as more pieces of the puzzle fell into place. She knew the apartment complex was old, as best she could recall it had been built in the 1930’s. It was one of the reasons she chose this place: the historical value. 

“If you wanted to see your apartment again, you could’ve just called.” Elena spoke in a reasonable tone; still trying to convince herself that there was no way this guy could be from the 1940’s. Her eyes flashed to the metal hand, remembering, and the terror rose in her throat again. “Your hand . . .”

The man looked at his uncovered left hand, and flinched, eyes meeting hers. “I hurt you, didn’t I?” Staring at her miserably, at the same time taking the conversation away from his hand. “It-it was raining, and I hadn’t eaten in days. The place was easy to break into, so I thought I could come in, find answers, and raid the fridge before-“ 

“You didn’t hurt me.” Elena said, a little untruthfully. Her back still ached from when he had shoved her into the wall, but she couldn’t stand to let him know that. The guy looked absolutely miserable, like a puppy that had just been kicked. She took a deep breath, preparing to ask him the question that had plagued her since she had seen his face in a 70-year old photograph. “What’s . . .What’s your name?”

At the name the man winced and doubled over, pressing his hands to his temples again. “ James . . . or Bucky, I think. That’s what people say my name is . . . but I can’t remember, can barely remember. It keeps coming back in flashes, but nothing I can really make sense of. But . . . I should go. I can’t be here, I’ve hurt people, I need to be alone again . . .”

Elena’s mind started reeling from shock that her ridiculous theory was real, that this man was really who she thought he was, even if he himself didn’t know it. The hair on her neck stood up, party because of this and partly because of the fact that the man kept saying he had hurt people. If this man was dangerous, she should definitely call the cops. But at the look on his face she couldn’t bring herself to turn away this strange man, Bucky, with the metal hand.

“Wait!” She broke in. “Don’t leave, not yet. You must still be hungry, that’s why you must’ve passed out last night. And you need clothes and a shower and . . . I want to ask you some questions.” Questions about how you managed to come back from the dead. 

I must be going crazy. She thought, agreeing to help this guy. But he looked like he really needed help, and her curiosity was winning out. She gave him a half-smile. “I’m Elena, by the way.”

For a second he looked at her, a shocked, confused expression on his face, like no one had ever showed him any form of kindness before. Then he nodded, falling silent again.


	3. Chapter 3

While the man-James, Bucky, whoever he was- was in the shower, Elena raided her fridge. She grabbed and made a box of mac’ and cheese, but decided that wasn’t enough for a guy like him. She grabbed two tubs of leftover Chinese and heated them up. She’d probably just blown through her entire supply of food for the next week, but she guessed he would think better on a full stomach. 

The next thing she did was call in sick to work. Mrs. Gold was very understanding, and promised to drop by with a pot of soup later if she wanted it. Elena guessed she’d probably have to skip school the following day as well. She hated the idea of missing class, but right now she had more important things to deal with. Like the guy who was supposed to be Captain America’s best friend who had just stepped out of the shower. 

His hair was damp and loose, coming almost to his shoulders. He had a towel wrapped around his lower half, and his chest and metal arm gleamed with the water from the shower. For a guy that had been living on the streets for what she guessed was weeks, he had a decent body.

Pointedly looking away from his chest, Elena gave him a cautious smile. “Hey, my brother left behind some clothes last time he visited. They look about your size. They’re in the other room. And I have some food for you, you look like you’re starving.”

James, as she’s decided to call him in her head- she liked it better than Bucky, gave her a cautious nod back. He headed to the other room, then emerged wearing a dark blue V-neck t-shirt and jeans. His attention immediately went to the food on the table. He looked back at her for a second, unsure, as though he were waiting for a command to eat. Elena just nodded, before he sat down and eagerly grabbed a fork, digging into the pasta and Chinese like he hadn’t eaten this much in weeks.

While he ate, Elena snuck into her room and grabbed the history textbook and a notepad. It was one thing that this guy thought he was Bucky, but he sincerely seemed to have a major case of memory loss. He didn’t seem to remember anything about his past other than his name. Elena wondered what the hell could’ve happened to him that caused him to lose all his memories. Further more, how had he actually managed to survive this long and still look this young?

Elena’s heart began to pound with excitement at the thought of jogging some of his memories. Her curiosity was starting to consume her.

James was just finishing eating as Elena walked back into the kitchen. She grabbed a chair and sat down, bringing the textbook and notepad with her. He looked up from the plate at her, frowning a little. Elena took a deep breath.

“So, James- is it okay if I call you James?”

He shrugged. “It’s better then when they called me asset.”

Somewhat taken back by that, Elena quickly scribbled the name down before continuing. “Good. So James, tell me what happened. How did you end up at my apartment?”

He winced a little bit. “I don’t know. I heard this was the place I grew up in. I was in DC, doing a mission. My handlers went off the grid. A man in a suit told me my name. So I tracked this place down, sleeping in the streets, looking for answers.”

“Wait. Handlers? Mission?” Elena suddenly got a flash of a news report, helicarriers going down in the middle of the Potomac. Her neck prickled. Am I harboring a wanted terrorist in my home?

Except he didn’t look like a terrorist. He looked like confused little boy asking for help.

Elena flipped open the textbook, holding up the page with his picture on it. “I know this is a lot to take in, for me too, but if you’re this James Barnes, you’re seventy years old. And you really don’t remember who you are?”

He gave her a look that made her feel like she just kicked a puppy. “They took my memories from me. They put me in cryo so I wouldn’t age. They made me do all their missions for them. I . . .I think I’ve hurt a lot of people.” 

While her mind reeled, Elena’s heart twisted. Before she could say anything more, he stood up abruptly. “I can’t be here. They’re looking for me, you’ll get hurt, because of me.”

He started to go for the door, but Elena grabbed his arm. She cringed a little when she felt it was the metal one. “No! You’re not going back to sleeping on the streets! Besides, I think I can help you. I’m working on becoming a history major, I know a lot about the time you lived in. May be I can help jog some of your memories. If I can’t, at least you can crash here until we find someone who can.”

Most people would think she was crazy, letting this guy stay. But Elena couldn’t let him leave looking so lost and alone. James needed someone now, and as crazy as it would seem, that someone was her.

James stared at her in disbelief, like he’d never seen someone show her this much kindness in his entire life. Finally he eased back onto the chair and, for the first time since they’d met, made full eye contact with her, deep blue eyes boring into her chocolate ones.

“Thank you . . .Elena?”

Elena nodded, swallowing the lump that had just formed in her throat. “So, when do you want to start?”


	4. Chapter 4

The Winter Soldier wasn’t used to kindness.

He’d only experienced it twice since he awoke from cryosleep. This first time was with the man he’d met on the bridge. The one who gave him a name. The one he was supposed to kill. 

Steve.

After he’d rescued the man and left him on the banks of the Potomac, the Winter Soldier fled. He dug a coat and jeans out of a dumpster and put them on. He begged and stole food when he could, although it was never enough to satisfy his hunger. He slept in alleys or abandoned buildings, always careful never to stay in one place for too long. He didn’t need HYDRA or the man on the bridge coming after him. 

It was only when he went to the Smithsonian that he rediscovered his purpose. He’d seen the face of the man he was supposed to be in the exhibit. Seen him laughing in black and white footage with the man on the bridge. Seen glimpses of a life that was coming back to him in flashes without anyone to wipe them away.

Bucky Barnes.

After leaving the museum, he stowed away on a train to New York. He wandered the streets for a while, searching for more answers, more clues. Searching for the address that he saw in the museum, the one that showed the block he used to live on.

The second time the Winter Soldier experienced kindness was here, with Elena. 

He’d half expected her to call the police, chase him out, provoke the instincts that had made him the Winter Soldier. Instead he offered to help him. He was dumbfounded as to why a stranger would agree to help him discover his past, much less let him stay in her home. Something in the back of his mind screamed that she was a HYDRA agent, sent here to befriend and then retrieve him. But something in her chocolate brown eyes made him trust her.

Trust. That was something the Winter Soldier hadn’t felt in a long time. 

And now, sitting on her couch, his belly full for the first time in weeks, watching her flip through the huge book and scribble on her notepad, he felt like he had a shot at finding out who he was.

“So,” she said with a small smile. “Now that we’ve established you’re not going anywhere, what of your past do you actually remember?” 

He swallowed. The memories came unannounced, in random orders. Since his escape from Hydra he only had one clear memory, of a tiny kid with blond hair and blue eyes. A boy he needed to protect at all costs. 

 

“A . . . a kid. Blond hair blue eyes. I had to protect him . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut, even remembering something as simple as that was enough to give him a splitting headache. 

He opened his eyes to find Elena staring at him, a look of concern on her face. “That must’ve been Steve.” She said gently. She flipped open the textbook and held it up for him to see. In it there was a picture of a scrawny kid, the same from his dreams. “He was tiny before the serum. It says you were always the one to get him out of fights with bullies.”

He swallowed hard again. “I remember that, some of it. I remember beating up people so he would be safe. But after that, it still comes in fragments. Before they would wipe me so the memories never came back . . .”

He could see Elena was intrigued-and possibly frightened- by those words, so he closed his mouth. He could almost see the thoughts forming in her head as she scribbled more notes in her notebook. Once again he had the overwhelming urge to leave the apartment, for her own safety. Part of him was still terrified that his programming would return and he would start murdering anyone in his path. He’d rather have been is isolated in the streets again then risk that happening to more innocent people.

Because that’s all he was, wasn’t he? A monster.

Elena looked up at him, lips pursing in dissatisfaction, as though she could hear the words being echoed in his head. 

“I saw you on the news in DC.” 

He tensed, the memories of that day flooding his mind. “I’m not going to hurt you . . . I . . .I don’t want to hurt anyone ever again, please-“

He was startled to see the grin spread across her face. “Look, first off I know since I’m not dead on the floor from the other night, that you’re not gong to beat me to death with that metal arm of yours. And secondly, you’re not just some weapon used to destroy Washington. You’re Bucky Barnes, even if you don’t know that yet. And damnit, I’m gonna help you figure that out. So don’t you dare even think about leaving this place again.”

Then her expression turned more serious. “I think HYDRA did something to you. “

He nodded, a shocked expression on his face, still perplexed at how someone like Elena was showing him so much kindness. He could vaguely feel warmth coming from his chest, but he decided to ignore it. 

Elena looked out the window, noticing that the sun had long dipped below the clouds. She yawned. “Look, I’ll go to classes tomorrow and see if I can find anything that could help us. But first I think we should get some rest. You can have the couch.”

She stood up and started heading down the hall to her room. She looked back and smiled at him. “Goodnight, James.”

James. He hadn’t thought to call himself that before. But Elena seemed to like it, so he decided he liked it.

He lay down on the couch, relishing that the softness wasn’t the harness that came from sleeping on the ground or on benches, and closed his eyes.

That night, the nightmares came back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos! :)


	5. Chapter 5

Elena’s mind was too active to sleep. She lay awake in her bed, pondering the how quickly her life had incredibly and irrevocably changed in the past two days. A long dead war hero who might have been destroying DC a few weeks ago was now asleep on her couch just down the hall. And she had vowed to help him, just like that. Elena rolled over toward the door and wondered at how she had become so amazingly calm after her initial encounter with the man. James, she reminded herself. James, a lost man who needed her help. That’s why she was calm. Mom always said you were as tough as nails, Elena thought with a smile.

She was just beginning to drift off to sleep when the scream jolted her awake.

It ripped through the room, a deep feral sound that made the hair on Elena’s neck stand up and her heart twist. It was the sound of a terrified animal; desperate to escape the torture it was enduring.

James, she thought, and bolted out of her room. She reached the living room and found him on the floor, still asleep, but shaking and whimpering and curled into a fetal position. The cushions of her couch were ripped and torn, probably due to his metal arm. James flinched again in his sleep and let out another animal scream that ripped across the room.

“James!” Elena cried, rushing over to him. She grabbed his flesh shoulder and shook it hard. “James, wake up! It’s just a nightmare! You’re going to be okay, I promise!” Her heart clenched further as she imagined what horrors he might be enduring beneath his eyelids.

Without warning, his metal arm clamped against her shoulder and threw her across the room. 

Elena crashed into the lamp by her couch. It shattered beneath her as she fell painfully to the floor. 

James’s eyes snapped open. He was finally awake. He shook his head fiercely as he took in the sight before him, the couch ripped, the blanket tangled on the floor, and Elena sprawled beneath the lamp with blood oozing from a large cut on her arm. 

“Oh, God, Elena! I’m so sorry Elena!” He rushed over to her. His whole body was shaking and tears dripped from his eyes. “Oh God, I was dreaming of . . . them wiping me. And I hurt you again!”

Elena looked up groggily at him. She was dizzy from the impact of hitting her head on the lamp. “James . . . It’s alright. I’m okay.” But as she said the words, dizziness overwhelmed her and she slumped unconscious to the floor.

James stared in horror. The one person who’d been kind enough to help him he had hurt again. He turned away from the scene before him as more hot tears threatened. He had been right all along: he wasn’t fit to be around people anymore. All he did was hurt them. He was a monster, a weapon, and that was all he would ever be. 

Quickly he grabbed the coat Elena had washed for him off the chair and dashed out of the apartment. He didn’t know where he was going, but he didn’t care. The farther away he got from here, the better. 

Elena’s mind came awake groggily. Why am I lying on the floor? She wondered, and then it all came back in a rush. “James!” She cried out, sitting up from the remains of the broken lamp. Dizziness overwhelmed her again as she noticed the large gash on her arm from where broken glass had pierced her skin. She looked frantically for James, but he was nowhere to be seen. His jacket was gone from where she left it and her front door was slightly ajar. 

He was gone.

“Oh, God!” Elena groaned as she stood up carefully from the wreckage of her living room. The rational, sane part of her mind was screaming insults at her for letting this guy in her house in the first place. What had she been thinking? But then, another memory came to her from last night, James’s horrified face as he stood over her, his broken apologies as she slipped into unconsciousness. 

He still needed her help. 

Elena looked at the clock: 7:30, almost the time she should be at work. The sane part of her mind intervened again, telling her she should work today if she wanted to pay rent at the end of the month. 

She rushed to patch up the wound on her arm. Luckily, it didn’t look like it needed stitches. She spread balm over it and applied a bandage. Then she went to get dressed. 

She would look for James on the way and after work. Hopefully he hadn’t gotten far.

Elena kept her eyes peeled as she walked briskly through the crowded streets. She kept stopping to look into alleys or other places where James could be hiding. Her heart began to sink as she reached to bookstore, still finding no trace of him. Maybe he’d already left the city by now, then how would she find him?

“Elena!” Mrs. Gold cried as Elena entered the front door. “How are you feeling, love? Still Sick? Oh, my! That’s a nasty cut on your arm! How did you manage that?”

Elena gave a weak smile. “I just fell, Mrs. Gold. And I’m much better, thanks for asking.”

Elena settled into her normal routine of reading and helping customers. Usually she greatly enjoyed the work, but she just couldn’t today thinking of James. She really hoped she could do a more thorough search after work. She couldn’t bear the thought of him living on the streets again. 

“You’re not talking much, dear. Something wrong?” Mrs. Gold asked from across the store.

Elena sighed. “Nothing, it’s just . . . well I met someone and . . .”

“Ah, a man, is it?” Mrs. Gold said with a raised eyebrow and a slight smile.

Elena flushed. “Well it’s, err, he left, I’m trying to find him, it’s not really romantic . . .well.”

Mrs. Gold patted her shoulder. “He’ll come back, they always do. A girl with you’re looks, he’ll be back in no time.” The woman grinned and walked away, leaving Elena’s face bright red.

Elena bolted onto the street when she got off work. She searched all the blocks bordering her apartment, stopping to ask neighbors if they’d seen a man who looked at all like James. She searched the local stores, behind dumpsters in alleys, anywhere she thought James could be hiding, still no trace of him. 

She felt tears pricking at the back of her eyes as she looked through yet another alley. James . . . Bucky, the Winter Soldier, and whichever of the three he wanted to be was gone. She had wanted so much to help him remember and now he was gone. Who would help him now? How would he survive out there? She had no idea.

The sun was starting to dip below the clouds. It was late and Elena realized she was starving. Her shoulders hunched, she made her way to a Chinese place at the end of one of the streets. As she ordered, on impulse she asked for another order of shrimp and fried rice. Well, if she were able to find James, he would probably be hungry.

The cold wind whipped around Elena’s skirt as she exited the restaurant. She squinted into the fading light of the streetlamp. Suddenly something caught her eye.

A flash of silver-metal? - That gleamed from just inside an alley she hadn’t come to yet. “James?” She whispered. Was it? She hurried over to check.

He’d been sitting in this damn alley all day, his shame too great to allow him to move. Why had he allowed himself to get so close to Elena in the first place? He was better off alone, discovering his past alone. At least he would only hurt himself. He probably deserved the pain.

He was hungry and thirsty again, and finding anything in the dumpster opposite him had proved to be a miserable failure. He shivered as a cold wind whipped around him, and buried his face closer to his too-thin jacket.

“James?”

His head snapped up. Elena was standing in the entrance to the alley. Her blond curls tumbled over the blouse she was wearing, and her skirt flowed with the wind. Her dark eyes stared at him with concern. He grimaced as he saw the bandage on her arm where the glass had cut her.

“Elena . . . I can’t be around people, all I do is hurt them . . . I know you saw the helicarriers on TV. You saw what I can do.” His voice cracked. “You saw what I did to you.”

Carefully Elena walked into the alley and kneeled beside him. To his surprise, the tiniest of smiles formed on her face. “I though we discussed before there was no fucking way you were leaving my apartment.” 

He stared at her in shock. He couldn’t comprehend why she was asking him to come back with her. Didn’t she hate him? 

“Look, James, I’m probably out of my mind for letting you come back, but you need someone right now. I may not be an expert in PTSD or how to get a long dead war hero’s memories back, but I’m sure as hell going to try. And as for last night, you didn’t know what you were doing. But we’ll need to work on those nightmares, and I have an idea about that.”

Strange warmth began to spread through James’s chest. Elena’s eyes went soft again as she held out the takeout bag. “There’s enough for two.” The rich scent made his mouth water. Very slowly he nodded and stood up. A grin spread across Elena’s face as she grabbed his hand and started walking back towards the apartment.

“So, last night, what was that about them wiping you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the late chapter, I had finals to study for!


End file.
